Mark & Patti March 2024 Prayer Requests

The first three Sundays in March we will be speaking at three different supporting churches in Wisconsin. The weeks between include lots of small groups: kids' groups, teens, community Bible studies, and prayer groups. We want to express our thanks for their continued encouragement and support as well as report on what God's doing. Additionally, pray that we might be an encouragement to some of them as well. May God reach out to others through us.

Praises:

Update re: our grandson Jeremiah. He had a lumbar puncture and biopsy Feb 15th and no cancer cells were detected. The bone marrow transplant was successful!

Update re: our newborn granddaughter. Her one functioning kidney is not in critical condition. The medical team is monitoring her regularly, giving her body a chance to grow before any surgical intervention. Yay, God!

Mark & Patti January-February 2024 Beans'talk

Download a printable version of the January-February 2024 Beans'talk.

Adeline Eden

How does a newborn have a most perfect head? Well, in our newest granddaughter’s case, on January 15th she was lifted out by C-section rather than take the squishy route most babies take. Adeline Eden is our daughter Emily’s third child; our twelfth grandchild.

We were hoping to have more news about Adeline before sending out a letter. The most recent ultra-sound (while still in utero) seemed to show that one kidney was dying and the other might need some surgical intervention. Next week the specialists will begin to assess both of Adeline’s kidneys. So, you’ll just have to wait with us as we continue to pray and see what happens.

Big news: peed diapers!

In light of what the medical team thought they saw before Adeline was born, it’s good news that this little girl is peeing. Who thought there’d be such excitement over a wet diaper? And she’s had several wet diapers! Yeah! Something must be working.

Holding down the fort

Our main job has been caring for Adeline’s two big brothers, Than and Elijah. Here they are “meeting” their new little sister. She may be coming home Friday. This family lives in Australia, so we are in the midst of summer.

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Mark & Patti November-December 2023 Beans'talk

Download a printable version of the November-December 2023 Beans'talk.

Artificial Intelligence & Bible translation

Last year, a professor at Carnegie-Mellon reached out for help for one of his PhD students. Her specialty is machine translation using large language models, with an interest in modifying the model to help Bible translation. She was looking for language data and someone who could evaluate her results. That's how Mark entered the picture.

At the end of October, after months of trying different things, Z defended her dissertation and passed. Surely the things she learned will help future translation projects. What a cool example of someone wanting to use their gifts to further the kingdom of God. Hurray for Z!

Field testing a new program

SIL, our linguistic organization that partners with Wycliffe, is working hard to develop new linguistic software. They have had their Fieldworks Language Explorer, or FLEx, out for some time. FLEx is the current computer tool for people to analyze, document, and better understand the languages they work in.

Now they’re working on FLExTrans for adapting Scripture from one related language to another. This tool has advantages over using the modified large language model approach, but it has some disadvantages, too. It also makes several improvements over the old package of programs, CARLA (Computer Assisted Related Language Adaptation), that Mark used for years while translating in Quechua. Since Mark has experience with related language adaptation, he is taking part in a field test. Helping to improve FLExTrans and understanding how much work it takes to get adequate results will help it be more useful for new teams. Mark also hopes to use it to help one of the teams he is consulting for.

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Mark & Patti November 2023 Prayer Requests

* Prayer is appreciated for Patti as she finishes up teaching a course online for new missionaries hoping to learn Quechua in the areas where they find themselves—three different Quechua languages. It’s been very stretching as she and Mark have had to develop materials for it.

* Pray for Mark as he continues to check both Old and New Testament Scripture translations.

Mark & Patti September-October 2023 Beans'talk

Download a printable copy of the September-October 2023 Beans'talk with photos.

A masterpiece

We recently visited the art museum on the campus of Oberlin College with friends. Since we tend to browse at different rates, we weren’t always in the same gallery together. Mark called me back at one point to be sure that I had seen some of the fine detail. Each tiny brush stroke came together to depict delicate lace as it folded over itself. It was an impressive display of careful painstaking work, and then repeated thousands of times throughout the painting to make the whole.

Translating the Bible is a bit like painting a masterpiece. We choose each word carefully (over 62,500* unique words per Bible), crafting and sculpting each sentence so that the message is clear, natural, and exact. But instead of the outcome being a painting which sits in a museum, we have a translation of God’s word to reside in people’s hearts and minds, encouraging, convicting, and transforming.

Giving a hand

In three different places in Peru, in three different Quechua languages, five young missionaries are at work, smack dab in the adventures God’s called them to. Learning the language is a huge challenge and they need all the help they can get. So, one day Mark said to me, “Hey, what do you think about offering them a course over how Quechua languages work? You would do a great job!”

We were taught a similar course when we first started, and it was a huge help. So, with Mark’s help to re-work past course material, just the other day I finished teaching the first three days of class. It’s been very challenging, to say the least. In addition, there’s the challenge of doing this over the Internet. We hope it will help others as much as it did us.

Family updates

Jeremiah, our grandson with leukemia, received his bone marrow transplant on September 13th. Just a few hours after it arrived by plane it was making its way into his body. The first couple of days have gone well. Now, it is a waiting process to see how well his body takes what it received. Meanwhile, Jeremiah is suffering from typical yet painful symptoms that make it difficult to eat or swallow. Eventually, those issues should clear up. 

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Mark & Patti September 2023 Prayer Requests

* Mark has been asked to join a trial for a new linguistic computer program designed to adapt Scripture from one related language to another. Pray for him as he works on setting up a couple Quechua languages for the trial. Meanwhile, the teams he consults for are working to respond to the notes he made on their drafts of Scripture.

* On September 14, their grandson, Jeremiah, is scheduled for a bone marrow transplant. There is a lot of preparation that will require him to be in the hospital ahead of that date. Mark and Patti plan to travel to Charleston, SC, the last half of this month to support the family and help with Jeremiah's siblings. Thankfully, Mark's work is portable. Pray that Jeremiah’s procedure can be done as scheduled and that it will be successful, with minimal side effects.

Mark & Patti July-August 2023 Beans'talk

Download a printable copy of the July-August 2023 Beans'talk with photos.

Your God, not mine?

The other day as Mark and I reviewed our memory verses, Mark commented that a literal translation of Deuteronomy 7:9 would not work in Quechua. The verse says:

Understand, therefore, that the Lord your God is indeed God. He is the faithful God who keeps his covenant for a thousand generations and lavishes his unfailing love on those who love him and obey his commands.

Moses is teaching the Israelites about God. But, to say “your God” in Quechua would indicate that he is your God, but not mine. But that’s not right! So, how should we translate? Our aim is to faithfully translate the meaning, not just the words. In Quechua, Moses would say our God. That’s a message Quechua speakers understand, even some 3,000+ years later!

A collective effort

Back in February several circumstances kept the Margos-Yarowilca-Lauricocha (MYL) Quechua Old Testament from being recorded. Now, beginning mid-June another time slot opened at the ministry doing the recording. They need those who record to travel 9-12 hours to the capital city and stay there for several weeks, recording each day.

It was difficult finding people who could record. Some of the MYL Quechua speakers who helped record the New Testament died during the pandemic. Others simply couldn’t get away from home for so long.

So, some men who speak neighboring Quechua varieties have stepped up. Wilmer went for the first month. He has years of experience working with MYL speakers and knows how to speak their Quechua. Then Percy and Felix volunteered to help record. They speak two other varieties of Quechua, with different vocabulary and different sounds. So, we are praying that they don’t slip into using their normal pronunciations! Finally, Shatu was able to clear some time in his schedule. He is a real MYL Quechua speaker and will also travel down to Lima to record.

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Mark & Patti July 2023 Prayer Requests

Last month, Mark helped the Panao Quechua team with the books of Lamentations and Song of Songs. This month, he'll be sitting in with them via Zoom while they do a comprehension check of those same books with people who haven't worked on the translation. Mark will also be doing a consultant check of some of their Psalms. Prayers for attention to detail and sensitivity to understand what may not communicate clearly as they do the comprehension check with people.

Their grandson Jeremiah is in line for a stem cell transplant for his acute leukemia. Neither of his siblings are a match, but they did find a match in the national registry. Pray for patience for all of the family.

Mark & Patti May-June 2023 Beans'talk

Download a printable version of the May-June 2023 Beans'talk with photos

Our plans or God’s?

Who looks at the year ahead and plans to be sick? Our plans certainly didn’t include Mark being down with pneumonia this month – first for a week at home followed by eight days in the hospital. After eliminating possible culprits via easier means, a couple lung biopsies and a bronchial wash uncovered the problem. He has a case of cryptogenic organizing pneumonia (COP). The switch from antibiotics to steroids is making a world of difference. Treatment is at least three months.

Our days are in God’s hands. We look to him rather than the passing circumstances that seem to interrupt our lives.

A re-run of one’s life

No energy to hold up a book and too fuzzy brained to listen to an audiobook, Mark was a captive audience. Re-playing situations and circumstances from the past, God reviewed times Mark or both of us were unkind, insensitive, inconsiderate and prideful.

It’s not that we meant to be that way. We were too self-absorbed, too insensitive to the feelings of others, too wrapped up in our own work and family. As a result, we were blind to the pain we caused others. God obviously wanted our attention, and putting one of us in bed was one way to get it.

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Mark & Patti May 2023 Prayer Requests

This month of May Mark is working through the books of Lamentations and Song of Songs for the Panao Quechua team. As always, pray for attention to detail and for being an encouragement to the team while helping them do the best job they can.

Our first grandson, Jeremiah, again needs prayer. He was recently diagnosed with MPAL, a type of leukemia. Immediately, that very same day, the medical team in Charleston started him on chemotherapy. Pray for the whole family to keep their thoughts fixed on God's trustworthiness and unfailing love no matter the circumstances. Jeremiah is 14.